Gallup Poll: Majority Now Say Gay Sex, Unwed Births, Are Morally OK

A Gallup poll shows that a majority of Americans now believe that sexual relations between two men or two women, and unmarried women having a baby, are morally acceptable.

In the new survey, 59 percent of American adults answered that gay or lesbian relations are morally acceptable, a 19 percentage point increase since 2001 when only 40 percent said it was morally acceptable.

Sixty percent of respondents said that having a baby outside of marriage was morally acceptable, a 15 percentage point increase since 2002 when only 45 percent said it was morally acceptable.

Of the 20 issues which Gallup asked about their moral acceptability, same-sex sexual relations and unwed pregnancies saw the greatest increases. They were also the only issues which changed from a minority to a majority of the country finding them morally acceptable over the past decade.

The other large increases in moral acceptability were: sex between an unmarried man and woman went from 53 to 63 percent, divorce went from 59 to 63 percent, and medical research using stem cells from human embryos went from 52 to 60 percent.

The only large decline in moral acceptability was for medical testing on animals, which went from 65 to 56 percent.

The moral acceptability of abortion remained the same as it was in 2001, at 42 percent. There was little change in the moral acceptability of pornography (31 percent), gambling (64 percent), buying and wearing clothing made of animal fur (59 percent), and the death penalty (62 percent).

At six percent, married men and women having an affair had the lowest number of those saying it was morally acceptable.

The May 2-7 poll of 1,535 adults has a plus or minus three percentage point margin of error.